UN Commission on Human Rights

Fifty-fifth session

Provisional agenda item 9

Question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms

in any part of the world

Oral statement by the Transnational Radical Party, a non-governmental organisation in general consultative status

Geneva, 7 April 1999

Delivered by Wei Jingsheng

Madam Chairperson,

I am Wei Jingsheng. In 1979 I was arrested and put in jail because I was involved in the "Democracy Wall Movement" of Beijing, and had advocated the "5th modernization" for China - Democratization. I was to spend a total of 18 years in prison.

I must first thank the many country delegates and NGOs' great effort in getting me release. Only through this relentless effort from the international community I was able to get out of jail alive in 1997. Today I am here to speak to all of you representing my old friends of the Transnational Radical Party.

A very small minority of friends and I were able to leave prison, but we did not regain our freedom. We were forced by the Chinese government into exile abroad, and are not allowed back in China. This shows clearly that the Chinese government does not respect human rights. Furthermore, today the jails in China are full of political prisoners. They are not only deprived of their most fundamental political rights, but their personal rights are also being violated. As of most recently I have received many detailed reports of how political prisons are suffering from harsh punishment and torture.

These days there is a strange belief outside of China. It holds that since the Chinese government signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it is a sign that the policy of dialogue has succeeded, as though the human rights situation in China has thus improved. At the same time, the Chinese government has begun a new and massive wave of arrest. Mr Fang Jue, Mr Wang Youcai, Mr Wang Di, Mr Xu Wenli, Mr Zhang Shan and tens of other pro-democracy and human rights activists and labor activists have all been detained in prison and have received extremely harsh sentence. In addition, over 2 thousand publishers of non-official publishing houses have been arrested.

Encouraged by all the outside praises of how successful the human rights dialogue has been, the Chinese government has even inaugurated a central agency last year which ranks even higher than the other organs of repression, aiming to "nip in the bud" all political organizations which are outside the Communist Party.

Madam Chairperson, respected delegates: We do not oppose the United Nations and the many countries' effort of effective dialogue with the Chinese government on the question of human rights. But we are against secret dialogue, we are especially against giving up pressure in favor of dialogue.

For example, after the Tiananmen Massacre in June 4th, 1989, all the countries in the world have carried out sanctions against China. Under pressure and without dialogued at the time, the Chinese government sentenced the student leaders Wang Dan and Wang Youcai to 3, 4 years of prison. But in recent years when other countries are favoring dialogue to pressure, Wang Dan was arrested for writing articles not even political in nature, and Wang Youcai was arrested for making preparations to register a political party; both of them received harsh sentencing of 11 years. This difference clearly shows that Dialogue without pressure will not get concrete results.

Madam Chairperson, we demand that the Chinese government comply with the international conventions it has signed, and also with its own laws.

According to Chinese law, the charge of "counter-revolutionary" has already been eliminated. The Chinese government should therefore release all the political prisoners who have been sentenced convicted of that charge.

Since it has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, China should release all the dissidents and non-official publishers arrested recently. Only then will China prove it indeed respects its own law as well as the United Nations conventions, only then does it prove itself to be a sincere correspondent of the human rights dialogue.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.